The sadness is also analogic - Lomographic Society International disillusion

Our deception started last year when my sister won the Urban Outfitters contest. The prize was a Fisheye Baby, a staff from Lomography contacted her asking about her information to ship the prize, but the prize never arrived at our house. We sent a lot of emails and we had no answer from Lomography, they turned their back on us. After try a lot we succeeded in make contact with Lomography Store in Sao Paulo. (we live in Curitiba and the nearest city which has a Lomography store is São Paula, 400km away from us). Last march I had to go to São Paulo, so I decided to try to talk with Lomo there and pick my sister prize. The staff apologise for Lomography, give me the camera and said that things are complicated, Lomo International is passing all the problems for the stores and the problems don’t come to an end.

The second Part of Lomographic deception: arriving home , me and my sister found out that her Fisheye Baby wasn’t working, the shutter was not opening. Again we sent emails to every possible address from Lomography and again we had no answer.

Third part: my sister won another contest 2 months ago, Love Unexpected (Love Drunk from December competition), the prize is a La Sardina camera, again they contacted her asking for her information to send the prize, guess what? We didn’t receive it . We already sent emails but no one answer us.

Fourth part: In April I travelled to California, in San Francisco, the first city I stopped, I went to a Lomography Store and bought a LOMOLCA +, which was a camera that I was wishing for a long time. Although I’ve already have knowledge about photography I ask the seller some tips about the camera. She explained some things, put the batteries and loaded the film.

I was happy to use the camera and took a great amount of photos during the trip, I used 3 films, 2 iso400 and 1 iso100, I made double exposures and also bought the splitzer. I could only think how cool my photos would be.

At April 29th I arrived in Brazil, the first thing I did was take my films to the lab. When I took it back I was totally disappointed, it was the worst sadness I have ever felt, out of the approximately 108 photos, only 5 came out. I stopped to think why it had happened and looking to de negative I found out that it wasn’t exposed in light. I pick the camera a found that the shutter wasn’t working, it wasn’t working ant that was why the photos didn’t came out .

If the seller in San Francisco was a bit more instructed by Lomography , she would know that the camera wasn’t working properly, as we had already tested on the store.

Despite the money that I had spent on the camera LOMO LCA+, which for me is a big amount,I don’t have the photos from my trip which for me is really sad, and disappointing. I am veryupset with Lomography.

To sum it up I I found that the 2 stores that I wished I could had gone, one in Los Angelesand one in Santa Monica, didn’t exist anymore, the staff from Lomography Sao Pauloare complaing about the lack of organization and the seller in San Fracisco hadn’t goodqualification. Moreover both of my 2 new cameras have factory defect.

Might be this the start of the end of Lomographic Society international?

Update: 06/08/2013

After a lot of emails sent to different sectors and with the help of some members of the Lomography community, i finally caught the attention of Lomography Viena which contacted me and solved all my problem through Lomo Brazil.
All my problems have been solved, my broken câmeras were exchanged and i received my lost prizes. I just want to thank both Lomography Viena and Brazil for the concern and for brought back my analogic happiness back

8 Likes

5 Comments

Happens tot he best of us, though I admit, I have never had it happen with a new camera. Lost 4 rolls of film with my Holga, before I gave up using it. Don't get to discouraged, Lomographic Society international community isn't going anywhere, even if they company has issues with their cameras. I shot film with used Canon, Nikon and Pentax gear, you might look to see if you can find a good used 35mm in your area. :)

You know what bothers me? Is that every time we write a blog entry complaining, they even put it on the "Interesting Blog Entries" (that's where I saw yours), therefor they must have read it, but nothing changes!! :( About your LC-A+, tem que estar na garantia, eles substituem, continua a insistir!!!

Hi! Sorry for all of these, but sometimes rumbles are just too crazy and shipping just gets out of hand. In behalf of LSI, I apologize and I'm sorry that you even have to write a blog entry about it.

And no, this isn't the end of LSI. Sometimes, things just really get out of hand. I am sorry too for your Lomographs. That has happened to me before, too. Anyway, if your sister still has not received her rumble prizes, I'll be glad to arrange this for you. Can you please drop me an e-mail at mayee.gonzales@lomography.com? This isn't my job actually (Lomography Brazil should be taking care of this, I'm from the international market) but I would really like to help.

As for your LC-A+, have you emailed customer service about this? Lomography products have an international warranty, pretty sure they can replace it.

Thanks and have a great day ahead!

All the best,
Mayee

P.S.
The Love Unexpected Rumbles are the craziest of them all. The whole rumble by Virgina got out of hand so we're still in the process of organizing who received what and who didn't. :(